


Little Flowers of Eloquence

by novelogical (writingmonsters)



Category: Burnt (2015)
Genre: Adam Is Very Gentle And Very Caring, Adam Takes Care of Tony, Bullying, Cuddling, Forehead Kisses, I Did Research Stammering But I Expect This May Not Be Entirely Accurate, M/M, Mocking a Speech Impediment, Stuttering, Tony has a stutter, food is love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-01
Updated: 2018-08-01
Packaged: 2019-06-19 21:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,989
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15518838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingmonsters/pseuds/novelogical
Summary: "My heart always timidly hides itself behind my mind. I set out to bring down stars from the sky, then, for fear of ridicule, I stop and pick little flowers of eloquence." -Cyrano de Bergerac (Edmond Rostrand)Tony hides his stammer well. The years of speech therapy do their work. But stress and high emotions push him over the edge -- Adam is there to catch him.





	Little Flowers of Eloquence

**Author's Note:**

  * For [misanthropiclycanthrope](https://archiveofourown.org/users/misanthropiclycanthrope/gifts).



> I did research throughout the fic to try and make sure I wasn't making any egregious errors in writing an AU where Tony had a significant stammer, but I expect there may be inaccuracies. If so, apologies, and please feel free to correct me.
> 
> Endless love to misanthropiclycanthrope - muse, co-conspirator, and wonderful friend.

After twenty-five years he becomes very good at coping.

His language is carefully controlled, precise, and the few hesitations and slips that do escape him are mostly brushed off by others -- stumbles caused by the Spanish lilt that lingers on all of his syllables, barely noticed. 

The years of speech therapy do their work.

Tony still sees Dr. Rosshilde to manage his anxieties, to untangle the knotted-wire catastrophe of his brain when the world threatens to overwhelm. He checks in with the speech therapist, Dr. Llewyn, every few months. The Langham is gutted and renovated from top to bottom -- Tony has countless appointments with contractors and interior designers and repairmen, makes choices on paint colors and cutlery and table linens. Adam’s presence is big and loud and fills every inch of the kitchen, expands to fill Tony’s brain, and his nervous heart stammers, stutters almost as badly as his unwieldy, anxious tongue. But the stumbles are small. Everything is all right.

They reopen the Langham and it is a catastrophe, Adam blazing and brilliant and furious. And then they try again, and this time something slots into place. This time, it works, and Adam is bright, absolutely glorious in his success.

It ties Tony into knots, stops the words on his tongue and turns them inside out, tangles them up and renders him absolutely useless. But he manages. Mostly. And no one notices.

Or so he assumes. 

There are days when he sallies back and forth from the dining room to the kitchen, bearing tickets and questions for Adam, the words catching on his tongue. “Table two ha-a-a-s asked for extra shallots on the side of their order.”

“A… Adam, there is a tree nut allergy at Table six. They ordered the  _ foie gras _ \-- make sure you clean the workstations before you make it, thank… you?”

“Orders for Table -- for Table -- for…” He finds himself staring into Adam’s unblinking, crystal-pale eyes. Tony shakes himself, wrests control of his words. “Orders for Table three.”

Adam notices. 

His world has been pared down to the Langham kitchen, to the dining rooms; to isolating perfection and distilling it down into each dish that leaves the pass, to the heaven and hell and madness of cooking and creating. But somehow he still always manages to notice Tony.

Does he really make him so nervous?

He knows. Adam would have to be stupid not to know -- blind and deaf and dumb. He has seen the soft, quiet looks, remembers the gentle, tenuous attempts at flirtation a lifetime ago in Paris. How young they both were then. And even now, Tony silently offers the heart he wears so openly on his sleeve. Gives friendship and asks for nothing.

But so often still, Tony goes pink-cheeked and flushed around him, hands gesturing hopelessly, tripping over his words sometimes -- just enough of a slip that Adam will notice. A stammer on a stubborn phoneme. A catch in the musical cadence of his voice. 

“Sorry,” Tony mumbles when the pause between his words is too long and he has to kick-start himself into speaking again. “English. Spanish,” he crosses the index fingers of each hand to illustrate the short circuit and makes a face. “Pffft.”

It is the excuse he normally makes, one that is almost never challenged.

He makes it through the rest of service biting his tongue, battling for every syllable. And if the staff wonder why he is suddenly so terse -- not managing a word more than necessary -- no one dares to mention it.

The dinner service is spent locked in his office, pouring over paperwork and practicing the progressive relaxation techniques from Dr. Llewyn, not saying a word to anyone. 

Deep breaths. Eyes closed. Jaw clenched tight for a count of five, then relax. Tongue pressed to the roof of the mouth for a count of five, then relax. Lips pressed tight together for a count of five, then relax.

Tony manages. 

Everything is fine. 

And then a third of the strawberries in the morning delivery are moldy, the lunch service is rushed and riddled with small catastrophes, and Tony finds himself on his hands and knees scrubbing pasta sauce from the floor in the brief respite between waves of diners, flushed and frustrated and fighting with the fricatives and phonemes under his breath.

Just dinner service. He can cope.

Guiding diners to their tables, checking the guest lists at the podium, ferrying the orders back and forth from table to kitchen where everything is frantic and tense -- Adam standing guard over the pass, the plates passing rapidly across the countertops, the staff sweating and arguing over saucepans and deep, simmering pots.

“Order… Order for -- for Table six.”

Adam watches him closely, his sharp, pale eyes tracking the nervous trails Tony’s hands make through the air, following him from the kitchen door to the pass and back again every time he appears. There isn’t time to dwell on it -- he can’t devote much focus beyond the niggling worry at the back of his brain -- but something seems off, the maitre d’ wound tense and biting off each word. Tony says little. Expresses less.

“Service.” There is a brief, violent skirmish within Adam as he pushes the plates toward Tony across the pass. Concern wins out over the stubborn part of his brain that tells him to mind his own goddamn business. “Tony?” 

A raised eyebrow. Adam might imagine it, but the line of his shoulders pulls tighter.

“Deep breath, okay?”

Tony shifts, just minutely. A slight sag of the ramrod-straight spine, a softening of the eyes. “Okay,” and he manages a wan smile even though inwardly his stupid, gibbering brain offers nothing but hysterics.  _ He knows. He knows. Mierda. Oh fuck -- he’s noticed. Is it really that bad? Que puto desastre solo matame ahora.  _ “Thank you.” With plates in hand he executes a perfect about-face, trying to ignore the wild hammering of his heart.

He navigates the dining room floor -- jaw clenched. One, two, three, four, five.  Tongue to the roof of mouth. One, two, three, four, five.

“Can I get you any-- anything else? No? E… Excellent. Enjoy your meal.”

Lips pressed together until they tingle. One, two, three, four, five.

“Gentlemen, are we ready to order?”

“I think so.”

There are three of them, puffy-faced businessmen stuffed into finely tailored suits circling the table. Tony has seen hundreds of men like this pass through the Langham dining room, old and moneyed and vaguely ill-mannered because of it. But still, he has to steel himself for the cool stare from the paunchy-faced head of the table, the request he lays before Tony with a smart flick of his menu. “We’ll have one of the female waitresses, thank you very much.”

Tony… Tony thinks his brain has short-circuited.  _ What?! _ “Ex-excuse me?”

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” The man seated to Tony’s left rolls his eyes, mimicking his words, and then addresses him with exaggerated slowness, enunciating as though Tony is stupid. “We’ll have one of the girls for service -- not you.”

The hot flush of blood rises instantly to Tony’s face, reddens the tips of his ears and darkens his cheeks with shame. He swallows, darts a glance around the restaurant as his pulse gives a shiver of panic. It is Kaitlin and Yana and Gemma and Claire making the rounds on the floor and he feels a sudden, fierce protectiveness swell in his chest even as he fights with the words, growing more and more flustered. “All of our staff have b-b-been given their dining… assignments, sir. I am afraid you have been seated with me this evening.”

This is not the right answer.

“Adam?!” 

Kaitlin comes storming through the kitchen doors hard enough that -- even on their cushioned hinges -- they slam against the wall. He flinches, spills the careful spoonful of sauce all over the plate. “Fuck!” They’ll have to do the order all over again, the presentation is ruined. “God damn it, Kaitlin!”

She ignores him, all bouncing curls and wide eyes and Adam has never seen her look like this; so tightly wound with panic. Any thought of berating her disappears.

“Adam.” She does not stop moving until she hits the pass, plants both hands on the counter, breathless. “You need to come  _ right now _ . Tony needs you.”

That stops him dead in his tracks. Forget the ruined dish. Forget the unfinished orders still awaiting a garnish. “Why?” His voice is too sharp, the kitchen suddenly plunged into silence. “What are you talking about?”

“Please,” Kaitlin demands, practically vibrating with urgency. “Just come.” 

Adam drops the spoon, fumbling with the strings of his apron. “Helene -- the pass.” He isn’t sure if he actually says the words aloud or if they are just in tune enough that she already knows to slide in beside him and take over as he circles the counter, but before he can move to follow Kaitlin the doors swing open again and Tony comes flying into the kitchen.

He moves blindly, scrubbing at his face with the flat of his hand, and there are terrible sounds caught in his chest, soft and wounded and breathless. And Adam catches him by the shoulders as he stumbles past, spins him around and catches a glimpse of the soft, familiar face -- pink and blotchy and tear-stained.

“Whoa --  _ whoa, Tony _ .” Adam holds him, dances in place as Tony fights against his grip, trying to catch his eye as Tony continues to make those hitching, ruined sounds in the back of his throat. “Tony, what happened?!”

“I -- I -- I…” Tony shakes his head, struggling against him. He can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t force anything more than broken syllables past his lips. He tries to shove past Adam again, risks a watery, frantic glance up at him -- and catches sight of Kaitlin over Adam’s shoulder. And his trembling lips fall open, the betrayal written in sharp relief across his face.

“It’s all right.” Adam slides his hands up to capture Tony’s face gently between his palms, stroking his fingers through his hair. And it feels like Tony might just shake apart in his arms as he whispers “it’s all right, you’re all right.” 

“Ada -- Ad -- Adam…” It’s a painful, heart wrenching effort watching as Tony swallows the words. Struggles. Starts again. Tries so hard to draw some measure of composure around himself. “Don’t… I -- I don’t…” His face crumples. “I  _ can’t _ …”

“Shh. It’s okay.” Adam smooths his hair, pulls him close. “It’s okay -- go sit in the office, Tony. Just breathe. I’ll be right back.” One hand at the small of his back, he guides Tony in the direction of the back office, sharing a look with Kaitlin as he squares his shoulders, heading for the kitchen doors.

She follows him, twisting her fingers into knots.

“What happened?”

“Table seven,” she says. “They’re absolute pigs -- I wasn’t close enough to hear most of it, but it was obvious they were harassing him. And not just in the way that patrons usually harass the waitstaff. Whatever they said, he started in with that stammering and it just got worse from there.”

“Fuck.” 

All Adam can hear is the pounding of blood in his ears, the weight of rage heavy in his hands. And through the tidal wave rush of noise he finds himself propelled across the room, honed in directly on Table seven and the three chortling, curdled men seated at the table.

This is not Paris seven years ago and he is not drug-addled and not quite so hot-headed, instead he draws up beside the table with every inch of him feeling frosted over with ice. The anger slow and chilly and all the more dangerous for it. 

He waits. Just long enough for silence to descend over the table in his presence. When he speaks, his voice is frighteningly level. Almost calm, even. 

“It’s time for you to leave.”

“ _ Excuse me _ ?” Flabbergasted, wine glass still poised in the air, the man blinks at him uncomprehending.

“No,” Adam says sharply. “Excuse me for not making the rules of our establishment clearer.” He feels Kaitlin’s eyes burning holes into his back. Thinks of Tony who endures and tolerates and bites his tongue to avoid a scene. “We don’t tolerate harassment.”

For Tony’s sake, for all their sakes, this will not be solved with his fists. Adam Jones is not a chef who brawls with his patrons -- not anymore. No matter how much they deserve it.

“ _ I  _ don’t tolerate harassment.” 

And he starts to move, circling the table and gathering up the edges linen cloth, tossing the fabric over their plates. The flatware clatters. The wine glasses tip, spilling their contents and shattering. He gathers it all up with the corners of the tablecloth, sweeps the whole mass of it off the table as they all gape and splutter and protest.

“Thank you for dining at the Langham.”

With a slight, ironic bow and a cold smirk he takes his leave.

The dining room applauds.

Kaitlin keeps her features carefully schooled, but there is no hiding the way her eyes dance with pride when he makes his way past her. 

The bundle of detritus, leaking wine and gravy is quickly discarded -- Tony might be furious later at the mess, the unnecessary waste -- but Adam can’t bring himself to care. All that matters is the point that’s been made. All that matters is Tony and the tragic look on his face when he had come barrelling through the doors.

“Did you kill them?” Max is the first one to speak when Adam strides, distracted, into the kitchen. The white of the tiles is glaring, the movement of stirring arms and sauteed vegetables being flipped expertly in the pan drawing Adam’s eye in every direction. There is work to do -- they are busy. Service isn’t over yet.

“No, I didn’t kill them.” Adam stares around the kitchen. His domain. Hesitates. 

“We have it covered, chef,” Helene says as she dusts a final sprinkling of basil over the chicken. She does not even look up at him. “Go see to him.  _ Now _ .” There’s a warning note in her voice that says she’ll fillet him herself and serve him up to the dinner guests if he idles there wringing his hands a moment longer.

Adam only pauses long enough to knock on the frosted glass office door -- providing Tony with a half-second of warning -- before he cracks the door open, slipping into the office and shutting it again quickly behind him. The kitchen, the dining room, none of that will leak into this space. Not right now.

“Hey Tony.” He speaks softly, his voice careful.

Hunched on the narrow, decorative sofa along the wall, Tony sits with his head hanging between his knees, fingers knotted in his hair. His shoulders shake -- the tailored line of his suit coat straining -- and swipes the back of his hand quickly across his face. The tears are still heavy on his lower lashes, his breath ragged. “I -- Adam… I - I - I …  _ maldición _ !” And Adam has never seen him look so bitter, so crunched up with self-loathing and frustration. “It’s…”

“Shh,  _ hey _ .” Adam is crouched in front of him in an instant, closing the space between them with his elbows on Tony’s knees, skimming one hand up to cup the back of Tony’s head, stroking his fingers through the short, soft hairs there. “Hey, easy. It’s okay -- it doesn’t matter,” he soothes. “It’s all right. You don’t have to talk right now.”

Tony swallows down his efforts, watches Adam with wet, frightened eyes.

“Just nod, okay?”

He nods, his head heavy in Adam’s hands.

“Is this a panic attack?”

Tony hesitates. His caramel-colored eyes rove across the ceiling. He sucks in his cheeks, considering.  Shakes his head.

“Okay.” Adam gets the feeling that that isn’t quite true, but he won’t press. Not now. His next question feels fraught -- “do you want me to stay?”

There can’t possibly be a more pitiful sight; sweet-faced, serious Tony Balerdi reduced to tears, his lips pressed into a thin, trembling line. His eyes slide away from Adam, guilty, ashamed. He nods like he hates himself for it.

“Good,” Adam hums, rising in one neat, fluid motion to sit beside Tony on the uncomfortable little couch. “Because I didn’t plan on going anywhere.” He brushes a few of the stray, soft hairs away from Tony’s forehead. “Last question -- can I hold you?”

The sharp, quick jerk of Tony’s chin is all the affirmative he needs. Adam bundles Tony into his arms, fits him safely against his chest and tucks Tony’s head beneath his chin and draws his knuckles up and down the curve of his spine as he murmurs reassurances into the soft wisps of fair brown hair.

Adam wonders quietly as he rubs Tony’s back, presses his lips to a sweaty temple, how all of this unravels. The diners and their smug, swollen faces. The words that had pushed Tony over the edge. Whatever had lurked beneath the smooth surface that had fractured so spectacularly.  _ Tony _ . Tony, who was always so carefully composed, so graceful and steady in his presentation, who seemed like he might swallow his own tongue stumbling and struggling against the words that fought so violently against him.

“They’re gone.” Adam breaks the silence when Tony’s breathing evens out, steadies. “Table seven? I threw them out.” 

And he recounts the event to Tony, tells him in a low, murmuring voice about their shocked faces, the way he had swept everything so neatly off the table in his grandiose, furious gesture. Tony softens against him, his breathing slow and intentional. 

Adam smudges the last traces of tears from Tony’s cheeks with the pad of his thumb. “You want some water or something?” he asks, though he is loathe to let Tony go. “Might be a little dehydrated.”

Tony nods.

Disentangling himself from the maitre d’s pliant frame, Adam slips back out into the kitchen where everything is too bright and too loud. How much time has passed? The last of the plates are going out. Service is almost at an end. Max, David -- each of his team makes careful, silent eye contact as he passes through their ranks. Fills one of the clear glasses at the sink.

Helene turns from the pass, folding her arms in one smooth movement. “How is he?”

“Quiet.” Adam shrugs. “He’s Tony -- he’s already compartmentalizing it all and folding himself back up into his neat little box of repression.”

“Don’t let him.” Helene accepts the dish David passes her without a glance. “I don’t know what happened to him, Adam -- and fuck knows I’ll never understand it, but he loves you. Reach out to him. Don’t let him hide.”

“I won’t.”

Tony is watching the door with wide, owlish eyes when Adam slips through. He opens and closes his mouth a few times, lips trembling in search of the words, and offers a soft “thank you” before cutting his eyes quickly away.

It makes something in Adam’s chest swell and tighten -- a feeling like he might burst with fondness for Tony Balerdi. “Yeah,” he manages stupidly. “Yeah, of course, Tony.” Adam sinks onto the couch beside him, passing over the glass of water. He hesitates, watching the smooth column of Tony’s throat work. “Want to talk about it?”

“Not… not really.” Tony stares into the bottom of the glass, unseeing. He knows he should, though. He owes Adam the truth at least. “Adam -- I… I am sorry. I…”

Adam shakes his head, stops Tony with one raised hand. “Don’t,” he insists. “Don’t do that, Tones. There’s no reason for you to be sorry.” He regards him sideways for a quiet moment, considering. “Service is almost over. Want to wait in here until they clear out of the kitchen and then I’ll make you dinner?”

The  _ yes  _ and  _ Adam, you don’t have to _ are clear and immediate in Tony’s eyes.

Something soft and frighteningly warm uncurls inside Adam’s chest at the sight. He smiles -- a sad, fond smile, all tenderness without an ounce of pity -- and smooths the back of his knuckles across Tony’s cheekbone. It’s decided. “I’ll make you paella.”

Time ceases to exist while they are wrapped up in the office, watching the shadow-play of figures moving back and forth across the frosted glass wall. Tony leans his head against Adam’s shoulder. Adam curls around him, protective, carding blunt fingernails through Tony’s fine, soft hair.

The knock at the door is unexpected, Helene’s voice at the crack. “Everyone’s heading out now. Goodnight Adam, night Tony.”

“Night Helene!” Adam raises his voice to return the farewell. And then he stands, squeezing Tony’s shoulder gently and smiling as he says “how about dinner?”

Tony installs himself at the counter, pulling up a stool, while Adam gathers up ingredients, heats up olive oil in the large skillet with rice, garlic, and a sprinkling of red pepper flakes. He cooks without having to think about it -- a flick of the wrist to flip the ingredients in the pan, a sidestep to the counter to dice the chicken. All his focus is on Tony’s serious, contemplative presence at his back.

There is a cough, an unsubtle clearing of the throat. “My father sent me to b-boarding school when I was eight. This… This was just after my mother had died.”

And Adam turns. Slowly, slowly, slowly away from the range. “Tony…”

“Please -- don’t.” Tony swills the water in his glass, watching it slosh up against the sides with vacant eyes. “I went away to school. I was… I was small for my age. Shy… Young boys can be very cruel.” He shakes his head and a wry, painful smile twists his mouth. “I -- I was harassed by my fellow students. Teased. Bullied. By the time I returned home for the summer I had… I had started to stammer.”

“Oh,  _ Tony _ .” Adam tries to keep one eye on the paella and one eye on Tony, feels something tender and aching crack itself open in his chest. Eight-year-old Antonio Balerdi. He can imagine the boy so clearly out of the man that sits across from him -- small and soft-looking and cherub-faced. Uncertain, lonely and lost and wound tight with nerves.

“Of course my father, well. He would… he would not stand for that.” Tony shrugs, all his attention focused on the glass cradled in his hands. His eyes are glassy, and Adam wonders what memories are playing out, unspooling inside his skull. “I was enrolled in speech therapy. And regular therapy. And I went back -- back to boarding school to be tormented and the stammer would become worse again. It was a v… a vicious cycle.”

Adam listens as he plates the paella, a serving for each of them, watching the bow of Tony’s head and the hunch of his shoulders over the countertop. He thinks of Dr. Rosshilde and the appointments Tony will quietly disappear to in the afternoons, considers this new knowledge, the history laid down as a blueprint that had formed Tony -- so intentional in his presentation, so careful with his words.

“You keep a pretty tight lid on it,” he observes, sliding the plate in front of Tony as he pulls up another stool to join him at the high counter. “Mostly I just figured it was mixing up your languages or me making you nervous.”

At that Tony looks up from the bite of paella hovering at the end of his fork, fixes Adam with a truly disparaging look. It’s very much classic Tony. The sight of it makes Adam feel lighter. 

“Despite what you may think, it is not always about you Adam.” There is more fondness than bite to Tony’s words, though. “Sometimes it is just a bad day for English, and that feels different. That is -- like the vocabulary has been scrambled. The stammering, though. That…” he considers for a long moment. “It’s like a muscle spasm.  _ Physical _ . I have the words but… but they just won’t get out.”

“You don’t have to explain it to me, Tony.” Adam can see the effort it costs him; an intensely private soul like Tony Balerdi, bearing these admissions, these frustrations. 

“I do, though,” Tony insists. He pushes his fork through the paella, frowning. “I should. It’s… you are right, I have pretty good control. Twenty five years of speech therapy better be good for something, yes?” And he offers Adam a wry little smile at that. “When I am emotional, though? Stressed? Pffft.” He waves his hand with a disgusted flourish. “All out the window.”

“Like tonight,” Adam murmurs. 

He has almost finished his plate. Tony? Tony has barely touched the food -- simply cuts it up into smaller and smaller bites, smashes it with the tines of the fork. 

“Like tonight,” he agrees, ducking his head. Ashamed.

“Hey,  _ no _ .” Every inch of Adam is suddenly suffused with the need to reassure, to protect, and he reaches out, hooking a finger under Tony’s chin. “No, Tony -- I didn’t mean it like that. I just, christ, it scared the hell out of me seeing you that upset and I didn’t know what had happened and…”  _ I wanted to make it better. _ He slips his hand up Tony’s jaw, drags the pad of his thumb across the softness of his cheek. “It’s only because I knew how furious you’d be with me that I didn’t start a brawl in the middle of the restaurant and toss ‘em all out on their asses.”

“ _ Adam _ .” That earns him an incredulous, scandalized sliver of smile. “It -- things got out of hand. They were rude, yes…”

“Yes.” Adam cuts him off. “They were rude. I don’t know what they said, but Kaitlin made it clear that they were harassing you. You had every right to be upset.” He hesitates, hates to ask -- doesn’t want to peel off a fresh scab. “Tony, what happened?”

Tony grimaces. Hesitates. “They… They requested service from one of the female staff members instead. I said they are stuck with me because there was no way the girls were getting near them with their manners.” Unconsciously, he leans against Adam’s hand, seeking comfort. “This was… not well received. My words…” A shrug. “They were not so kind about this either. And the more embarrassed I got, the more they mocked, and the ruder they were, the worse it got.”  _ Spit it out, boy.  _ Gaping up at him, mocking the trip and catch of his words.  _ Out with it.  _

Adam gives him a long, thoughtful look. Proclaims decisively “I should’ve hit ‘em.”

“ _ No _ , you should  _ not _ .” Tony has started to settle in his skin again. He moves more fluidly, speaks with more of his typical ease and grace. Not so rigidly self-contained. “It was… I haven’t struggled that badly in a long time -- to the point I could hardly breathe.” He scratches the tip of his nose, eyes wandering. “That hasn’t happened since I was an adolescent.”

He had thought that had all been left behind him with boarding school and his childhood tormentors, with the careful application of Dr. Rosshilde’s psychoanalysis and Dr. Llewyn’s speech therapy.

“Yeah. Next time there’s a problem, I’m definitely gonna hit some people.” Adam takes up Tony’s discarded fork, scooping up a bite of the chicken and rice. “Now c’mon, eat your paella.” He dangles the fork before Tony’s mouth, tempting with a cheeky, lopsided smile.

Tony blinks at him. For a moment, Adam expects him to protest. And then he leans forward just enough, lets his mouth fall open, and Adam guides the bite carefully into his mouth, watches as his lips close slowly around the fork. Pink-cheeked, Tony maintains quiet, steady eye contact.

“Good?” 

“Good.” Tony nods his agreement. “Although… maybe -- maybe less of the red pepper.”

Adam snorts and scoops up another forkful, slipping it past Tony’s lips. He feeds the rest of the paella to Tony this way, bite by bite, studying the curve of his lips, the working of his throat when he swallows. And Tony watches him through his eyelashes, chews slowly. The silence is soft and comfortable between them.

Even when the plates are clean they revel in the stillness, watching one another, observing the quiet play of affection and amusement across familiar features. The curiosity in Adam’s eyes. The shyness that blushes on Tony’s cheeks.

It’s Adam who breaks the spell, standing slowly, reaching across the short distance between them to cup the back of Tony’s skull and draw him close. He ducks down, pressing a firm kiss into soft hair, tasting the bite of pomade. Another kiss to the tender place between Tony’s eyebrows.

“Look, Tony.” Adam presses their foreheads together with a sigh, speaking softly into the space where their breath mingles. “You’re one of the best maitre d’s in Europe -- you’re brilliant at what you do. You can take care of yourself, I know that.” He huffs out a laugh. “Hell, you spent so many years looking out for me while I was trying to kill myself in Paris acting like a drunken, strung-out idiot.”

“I don’t.” Tony swallows the words. “I don’t need you to look out for me, Adam.”

Adam squeezes him gently. “I know. I know that, Tony. But I’m offering anyway? Just… when things happen -- like today, or even just little things -- I’m here now. For you. Okay? Whatever you need from me.”

“Promise you will not start any fights in my restaurant.”

Adam traces an ‘x’ across his chest, eyes dancing even as he puts on a solemn face. “Cross my heart.” For Tony Balerdi, though? He will gladly start a brawl, split his knuckles and deal in bruises if it means banishing one more specter of childhood tormentors, of a lost mother and an absent father and a boyhood full of heartache. 

Tony Balerdi is not fragile. Not entirely. But Adam is  _ fiercely  _ protective.


End file.
